Jeff, I am one of the folks who drove through the founding of the UP Winter Habitat Work Group, with financial support through Safari Club International, through their representative, former Region 1 Wildlife Supervisor, Jim Hammill. Jim and I were sitting next to each other at a UP Deer Management update presentation. At that time he was a member of the MDNR UP citizen's advisory committee to the UP Wildlife Management Team, My attendance at the meeting was drivin by my interest in applying for an open seat on this advisory committee. I have known Jim for years, so I asked him point-blank whether it was worthwhile to apply for the opening. He smiled and said that he was leaving the group, largely because they had no interest in habitat management or habitat acquisition, just an ongoing desire to argue antler point retrictions (APRs) within the buck harvest segment as a means of management. Our ensuing conversation essentially focused on the sequential loss of deer yards and declining habitat quality of deer yards, now known as Winter Deer Complexes (WDC)
The UP of Michigan's deer herd is relatively unique, in that segments (subpopulations migrate from thirty to over 100 miles to overwinter in Deer Winter Complexes, or deer yards largely composed of cedar. John Ozoga referred to them as the "green barns".
In the mid-1990s there were close to a million deer in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. At that time, the UP had adequate Winter Deer Complex habitat to carry around 750,000 deer through a normal UP winter. After, the winters of 1995-96 and 1996-97 the population declined by over 500,000 animals. One of the conclusions the MDNR Wildlife Division personnel arrived at, from this die-off was that you cannot stockpile deer on the landscape without adequate winter habitat, as well as summer doe/fawn rearing complexes that would minimize cumulative fawn predation mortalities incurred from coyote, wolves, bobcat, bear, and eagles. After several failed initiatives directed strictly at WDC habitat quality mapping and block purchases of WDC lands in private or private corporate ownership via Natural Resources Trust Fund monies, the legislature blocked further land acquisitions, courtesy of State representative from a logging clan that had an "axe to grind" with Forestry. He secured a position as chair of the appropriations committee that oversaw department funding and pushed through the legislation that required the department to develop a working plan for every State owned parcel larger than 80 acres, prior being allowed to purchase additional holdings. It had disastrous consequences on the UP deer population, since many of these DWCs were on private, private corporate forestry company , and Federal Forest (Ottawa and Hiawatha) lands and logged over the interval. Prior Mead's corporate departure from the UP an internal memo. was leaked to the press outlining cutting of a series of drumlin uplands within the Hermansville deer yard primarily to destroy and eliminate overstory of hemlock and deciduous tree species on these drumlins and re-seed with red pine. There was quite a firestorm of controversy generated, yet still no overwhelming Public support for WDC preservation or enhancement among the sport hunting community. The turning-point was reached when the MDNR considered closing the deer season due to overall population numbers; setting their estimate of UP deer numbers under 150,000 in 2015.
The Upper Peninula Winter Habitat Work Group was formed in 2015, but the initiative actually started in 2012.. I have been attending meetings as a private citizen under the open meetings act requirements, since its formation. What Jim Hammill outlined in our conversation was an SCI financed grant to hire a wildlife biologist to map all historic DWCs. JR Richardson was able to secure additional monies from a Wildlife Habitat Improvement grant to fund the other half of this person's salary. What we eventually put forward to Natural Resources Commission, chair, JR Richardson was a comprehensive plan to initially map all DWC complexes UP wide, follow this up with a "boots on the ground" assessment of each DWC to first verify current use by overwintering whitetail deer, develop a DWC by DWC specific forest overstory map that reflected current conditions, each DWC that was mapped would then have a five and ten year management plan drawn-up. Once this phase reached completion, outreach meetings were held, preceded by mass mailings to all parcel owners with 80 acres or more owned within the DWC, as well as within 2 miles of the specific DWC outside edge boundary to physically attend, or request additional follow-up and contact via Soil Conservation Service, MSU Cooperative extension service regional office community foresters, or either of the two MDNR Community Foresters to conduct on-property walk through and subsequent forest habitat management plan write-up. All private corporate forestry company forest managers, as well as Federal Forest holdings foresters were invited to attend and participate in the DWC management plan write-ups as well as provide input on how to engage in forest habitat manipulations compliant with their overall management goals and procedures on DWCs that exist within their holding.
Fifty-seven DWCs have been mapped and ground trothed to verify current use UP wide. Fifty-two plus have completed long and short term forest management plans drawn-up for them. Four separate community outreach meetings have occurred for private landowners to request parcel management plan write-up. Over 80% of these contacted individuals have followed-up to receive field visits by a forester to aid in direction of habitat management plan development.
A separate sub-committee was formed to prioritize, via a scoring system, DWCs for habitat redevelopment initiatives going forward:
https://www.michigan.gov/...scoring_546424_7.pdf
In a separate initiative, the MiDNR Wildlife Division has contracted researchers from Mississippi State University to engage in a three-tier assessment of fawn predation, stratified by snowfall depth range. I have no idea how much population biology background you have, Jeff, so I'll do this via the standard logistic curve population growth model. The closer you can hold overall deer numbers to a population density where the intrinsic rate of increase is maximal or near-maximal, the faster the population will expand. Or, bottom-line, natality rate is easier to maximize or markedly improve via habitat manipulation, overwhelming senescence and instantaneous death rates, independent of compensatory mortality factors. In high snowfall latitudes, you simply cannot stockpile deer, particularly now in this era of climate change where the extremes of climate can vary this markedly. What the MSSU folks have found is that our wolf population (roughly 750 animals) has displaced much of the coyote population from their normal habitat, pushing them back into high stem count young(er) tree stands, also used as fawning and fawn delivery cover by doe bands. Seasonal mortality spikes are associated with black bear foraging in vernal wetlands, stumbling upon fawns in the surrounding high stem density scrub around these sites, and eating them. Bobcat are the most efficient fawn predators, but their low numbers keep their overall impacts down. Wolves are not obligate fawn predators, but are capable of seasonal spikes depending on winter severity influenced fawn and doe condition, I.e. in hard winters low body weight fawns, as well as does are easier prey. Eagles, too, have been documented to kill fawns, both bald and goldens.
This general trend appears to hold true thus far through the first two phases of their sampling and analysis, independent of snowfall depth, while percentage predation rates by coyote, bobcat, and wolves increase with snow-depth.
So, keep the stem count high and preserve natural blow-downs as well a augmenting thee with hinge cutting to create a three dimensional barrier, minimizing fawn
predation.
The other thing that has had a marked beneficial impact is the banning of whole-tree harvest during winter months in logging operations on lands within 2 miles of these DWCs...on ALL lands.
One thing to also be cognizant of as you go forward, Jeff, the corporate forest folks will want a specific description of what "finished" looks like, in terms of whitetail denity, since they are focused on adverse impacts of over browsing on their holdings.
Besides, brain worm induced mortality increases in moose as cohabitating deer density increases...something we learned from the moose transplant effort.
